Welcome back to Minor Dilemmas, where a member of Defector's Parents Council will answer your questions on surviving family life. Have a question? Email us at minordilemmas@defector.com.
This week, Dave offers guidance on how to solo parent when your spouse is away.
E.A:
My wife has a business trip coming up and that means I’m going to be alone for a week with our two daughters, 5 and 3. I’ve had them by myself for a day or two now and then, and the kids were great and we survived. But this will be by far the longest time of their lives without Mom around and so completely dependent on me. I’m supposed to be working and honestly I’m anxious about how it’s going to go for them and me. Any survival tips?
Ah, so you've been audibled to a one-on-two scheme, E.A.? Well, I’ve been there too. It’s a rough and wonderful place. I’m here to tell you: You’ll be more than fine.
See, my wife happens to be gone all this week, at the same work convention she’s been going to since before we had kids. That’s a long time: Now we’ve got two boys, 20 and 16. The older one’s away at college, and our teenager, a high school junior, is currently closer to maintenance-free than I’ve ever been. So I’m not fretting now like I did when they were your kids’ ages, when I’d spend a few weeks full of the same anxiety and dread plaguing you now.
Back then, I’d give the boys a pep talk just before their mom headed out, part of which became so familiar it turned into a call-and-response:
“What are the worst words in the English language?”
“Daddy’s in charge!”
“That’s right,” I’d say, and then confess that I’m not sure I’m up to the assignment at hand, and that I would need their help and cooperation just to get through the week. I’d give my talk in jokey tones, but I meant every word. Early into parenting, I learned that a couple is greater than the sum of its parts. Take transportation: Having only one person available to get two kids where they need to be and back is infinitely more stressful than having both parents play chauffeur. I dare anybody to challenge my math!
Facing the fact that everything in the house would be dependent on me, even if only temporarily, was heavy, so I’d also give myself a pep talk to get prepared. Just simple stuff: "Be organized" (I’m nowhere near as organized as my wife). "Set alarms and have a backup" (my wife is a morning person and usually my backup alarm). And a personal rule for Daddy’s In Charge Week: "No guitars till Mom gets back" (I’m obsessed with guitars and spend most free minutes, and too many other minutes, playing them. So this one week a year was like my Lent).
E.A., your dilemma has me recalling some bumps we had to overcome while I was flying solo like Lindbergh. On my first stint as a temp single parent, when my eldest was only 11 months old and had no little brother yet, I suddenly was doubled over in mysterious pains deep in my gut, with back spasms and sweating through my flannel shirt despite fall temperatures. I had no idea what was happening, but knew I couldn’t leave my kid alone to find out. Thank goodness my mother-in-law, who lived an hour away from D.C., happened to be in town when my trouble started. She rushed over and called 911, then took care of my little one while an ambulance hauled me off to the hospital, where I was diagnosed with my first kidney stone. After an overnight stay and lots of morphine, I was back on duty the next day.
Then, when they were 2 and 6, my youngest was running full speed through the living room, pushing a plastic toy tractor, when it stopped dead on the carpet and he smashed his face right into it. He looked up at me, and blood was flowing through a hole that had been punched in the skin below his lips, big enough for me to see his gums through. I rushed him to National Children’s Hospital, the universally hailed medical center less than two miles from our house, and was standing by him, watching while they were stitching him up and he began silently convulsing like Linda Blair in The Exorcist. One of the doctors said loud enough for me to hear that they’d shot the painkiller on the wrong side of his mouth, so they’d been puncturing an unanesthetized portion of my poor sweet baby boy’s face. The shoulder I could have used to cry on was away at a work convention.
But, overwhelmingly, the good kicked the bad’s ass during our Daddy’s In Charge Weeks. Some low-level rebellions helped get us through. I’m not a fast food guy normally, and we usually ate pretty healthy in our household, but I’d score points by taking them to a Popeyes near the house for our one meal out. We had a routine each night before bedtime, where we three McKenna boys would get in the same bed together and call Mom to say good night. Then I’d let them choose five online videos, mostly YouTube highlights packages of athletes we liked, and we’d usually end with some sort of semi-off-color Jackass-ish or "fail" video that we all knew their mother wouldn’t like. But, hey, Daddy’s in charge.
Then I’d tuck them in, go downstairs and clean up, do the dishes, make tomorrow’s lunches, and get in bed all alone, spending a few minutes just feeling more satisfied than usual about my role in their lives. I’d sleep like a baby, assuming that baby had insomnia from worrying about mundane things—some necessary, like what’s for breakfast, but also uncontrollable and unpredictable matters, like rush hour traffic preventing everybody from getting to school on time. This was the product of another solo dad lesson: The clock never runs faster than it does in the morning while you're getting kids ready, especially when it’s all on you.
And yet, the days never passed as slowly as they would that one week every November when my wife was away. I’d count them down like a guy in a penitentiary, even if my sentence was only five days a year. On the last day, once I had the last breakfast made and lunch packed, I’d feel so dang satisfied.
By the end of weeks like this, I always had a greater appreciation for my wife, and my kids. And my parents (RIP). Hell, for all parents. No joke, I still don’t know how permanent single parents do it. I just don’t.
So, E.A., here’s the practical advice I’d offer you or anybody as discombobulated as me, who gets thrust into temporary single parenthood: Come up with a game plan for clothing and meals. Line up babysitters, and let friends and nearby relatives know that they might be on call for help in an emergency. (Kidney stones make up their own schedules!) Your kids might be a bit young for organized sports, but for any future one-on-two scenarios: Don't be bashful about asking other team parents for some transportation help. Think up some special treat or entertainment gimmick that will set your one-on-two time apart, and maybe make some memories.
I’d sometimes buy another guitar at the end of Daddy’s In Charge Week to pat myself on the back, but I could pass a lie detector test by saying the week was its own reward. I never felt as useful or so obviously had a purpose as when it was all on me. You know, E.A., I’ve lost that useful feeling! Now it’s gone, gone, gone. I miss the crap out of it. Someday, you’ll miss it. You too will discover that which does not kill you, or your offspring, will bring you closer, just like I did.
Last weekend, my elder son called from college, just as I was taking his mom to the airport for her yearly fall trip. He said:
“Worst words in the English language!”
“Daddy’s in charge,” I replied.
That made me so happy.
